{"id":9091,"date":"2025-10-28T11:40:48","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T11:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/humanities-blog\/?p=9091"},"modified":"2025-10-28T12:05:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T12:05:27","slug":"dangerous-writings-difficult-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/humanities-blog\/2025\/10\/28\/dangerous-writings-difficult-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Dangerous Writings, Difficult Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

A blog post by Rebecca Cargill<\/a><\/p>\n

It is with some excitement and curiosity that I booked my ticket to attend Dangerous Writings: A Symposium on the Ethics and Practicalities of Working with Risky Texts. <\/em>It is a title that excites and intrigues, promoting thought on what a dangerous writing might be. The programme for the day promised an interdisciplinary tangle of academic and professional perspectives of curating, researching, writing, and reading, dangerous writings.<\/p>\n

Reflections from the Dangerous Writings Symposium<\/strong><\/p>\n

The symposium was held in the Kanaris Theatre at the Manchester Museum<\/a>. It is bright; white walls and rows of pale grey chairs lending the room a quiet formality. I take my seat on the second row. At the front, four chairs are arranged neatly behind a low white coffee table, set with glasses of water. A single microphone rests there, waiting.<\/p>\n

The first panel enters the world of curation. It is an exploration of what archivists and curators consider dangerous, whether this be the context of medical writings (Steven Hartshorne<\/a>); how a letter can become a site of controversy, its very existence raising questions of responsibility and access (Janette Martin)<\/a>; humanitarian and missionary writings and their potential for impact spanning across continents and decades (Flora Chatt<\/a>; Tereza Ward<\/a>).<\/p>\n

This thread of risk and responsibility carries into the second panel, where the focus shifts to prison-based research. Here, the ethical dilemmas sharpen. How do you engage with prisoners\u2019 diaries in an ethical way (Emily Turner<\/a> & Marion Vannier<\/a>)? What does it mean to enter the prison as a researcher, to ask questions that may unsettle, to carry the weight of stories that cannot easily be left behind (Andriani Fili<\/a> & Mary Bosworth<\/a>)? How do we navigate the complexities of shared ownership of narratives (Kate Herrity<\/a>)? The discussion lingers on the impact not only on participants but on the researchers themselves, who must navigate the blurred boundaries between observation, empathy, and vulnerability.<\/p>\n

The third panel picks up this thread and turns it inward. Now the researcher becomes the subject, the self-folded into the work; Lucy Campbell<\/a> reflects on using her own prison diaries as data (see too Campbell 2024<\/a>). Blogging, a way of writing that is both personal and political, emerges as dangerous for the writer both in- and out-side prison. Not only does it carry the risk of incarceration, risks are further amplified if writing from the inside (Sanja Petkovska<\/a>). Lastly, we are left with the unsettling story of a researcher \u2018cancelled\u2019 for challenging the role of lived experience in criminology, a paradox in which the advocacy of lived experience might become hegemonic (Jason Warr<\/a>).<\/p>\n

By the time we reach the final panel, the day has shifted again. Dangerous writings are reframed through the lens of extremist published memoirs \u2013 autobiographical accounts by individuals with extremist ideology. Jacopo Bernardini<\/a> highlights the challenges of engaging with the memoir of Nicola Benagli, who served as prefect of Apuania between October 1943 and May 1944, and who\u2019s memoir survives in the archives of the\u00a0Fondazione \u201cIl Vittoriale degli Italiani.\u201d<\/em> Jon Shute<\/a> comments on Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolf H\u00f6ss (1995<\/a>), introducing another layer of complexity in published works. The themes identified here are overtly dangerous: the normalisation of violence; casting the criminal self as a victim; the disengagement from moral reasoning to justify acts of genocide; the risks of promoting extremist views and inspiring the public.<\/p>\n

The day is rounded off with a dramatisation of letters, written by a person in prison (directed by Steve Scott-Bottoms<\/a>). It is an uncomfortable watch, forcing empathy where it has previously been refused. The emotional response to crime meets an understanding of coercive control in a brutal clash, causing an internal battle over what is moral and just \u2013 and to whom.<\/p>\n

What Makes Writing \u2018Dangerous\u2019? Parsing the Peril in Text <\/strong><\/p>\n

As I stand up from my chair and leave the theatre, the questions linger. The symposium, emphasising the interdisciplinary nature of dangerous writings, also highlights the complexities in defining them. This, I find the most pressing question. As the symposium highlights, this is a broad and complex issue \u2013 with no easy answer. But let us consider one aspect of this; the platform through which writing is disseminated. The symposium foregrounded three key sites: special collections, academic publications, and publicly published works, guarded by curators, academics, and publishers, that effectively act as gatekeepers for the wider population. Each offers distinct affordances \u2013 and risks.<\/p>\n

Special collections, often housed within libraries, are curated spaces where texts are preserved for their historical, monetary, or cultural value. Access is mediated by archivists and curators, and context and warnings can be provided. Yet danger persists. An archived letter may provoke reputational harm, unsettle curators, or impact readers in unforeseen ways. Here, the risk lies not only in the content but in its preservation.<\/p>\n

Academic articles occupy a different terrain. Whilst access is generally less controlled, depending on licencing agreement, these texts are embedded within scholarly frameworks that offer critical engagement and contextualisation. Furthermore, readers are typically academic and are likely to understand \u2013 and seek out \u2013 the context. Nonetheless, academic outputs pose risks as well. Interpretation of participants\u2019 voice may lead to misrepresentation; misused research may lead to reputational harm for the institution with which the academic is associated. Readers, too, may encounter distressing content, though mitigations such as peer review and disciplinary norms offer some protection.<\/p>\n

Published works, such as books, blogs, or memoirs, are arguably the most exposed to the public. Circulating freely in the public domain, they lack the curatorial or scholarly buffers of the other platforms. The potential for harm is amplified: extremist narratives may be disseminated without critique; morally contentious accounts may reach wide audiences without framing. In this sense, published works may represent the most potent form of dangerous writing. It is worth noting, however, that this can be either amplified or diminished by the agenda of publishers and editors. Whilst the aim of the publisher may be to expose violence in a stark and brutal reminder of what could happen if history repeats itself, how do we balance this with offering extreme ideals to the wider public in a way that may also be seen as glorifying violence?<\/p>\n

What we see here is that curators and archivists, academic writers and researchers, and editors and publishers, have the power to promote dangerous writings, or censor them. We need to consider who really has the power \u2013 the individual, or the institution \u2013 but I would argue the two are entwined, informing each other\u2019s values and agendas. What responsibility do they have to protect the public from dangerous writings \u2013 and what right do they have to censor? As the ones with the knowledge of the context and the potential risks of giving platform to dangerous writing, surely, the responsibility lies with them to ensure they minimise these risks \u2013 whether by providing warnings, noting the context, or censoring work completely. It could be argued, that in the same way gatekeepers have a duty to protect research participants, the gatekeepers of dangerous writings have similar responsibilities.<\/p>\n

Dangerous Writings in a Fractured Present: Thoughts for the Future<\/strong><\/p>\n

This debate is further complicated as we now find ourselves in a world of \u2018digital permanence\u2019. The advent of far-reaching platforms on social media, that publish all and any extreme and dangerous content under the guise of \u2018free speech\u2019, take some of the power away from these gatekeepers of dangerous text \u2013 if thwarted by a publisher, curator or academic, there is always another way to ensure information (whether true or not) \u2013 reaches wider populations.<\/p>\n

Somewhat juxtaposing this, censorship is predominant, particularly on social media platforms. We see this embedded in movements such as the rather infamous \u2018cancel culture\u2019, which seeks to silence views which are not widely shared among others (Norris, 2023<\/a>). Whilst this could offer a safeguard to more unsavoury content through \u2018re-distributing attention\u2019, it does not distinguish between morally \u2018good\u2019 or \u2018bad\u2019, and can be used to \u2018punish\u2019 (Janssens & Spreeuwenberg, 2022<\/a>). The risk here is that extreme and violent voices become hegemonic on these platforms, thereby excluding (or censoring) other content from more marginalised groups.<\/p>\n

What then, does this mean for academics? What is the point in continuing to curate and publish potentially dangerous writings? It is clear that censoring is risky itself; do you successfully quash harmful material, or do you inadvertently encourage others to seek platforms on which they will be heard? For me, the need for gatekeepers to provide warnings and context is even more pressing in an era when extreme material is so readily accessible. But this raises another final question \u2013 how do we engage ethically which such dangerous writings?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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